Original Press Release

Alerts such as tornado warnings and internal communication messages now impossible to miss

KNOXVILLE, Tennessee and NEW YORK – The University of Tennessee Medical Center, based in Knoxville (TN) has adopted new software to alert and inform more than 7,000 staff members, patients and visitors at its premises. With 54 large video monitors throughout the medical center and interactive screensavers installed on 6,000 PCs, alert messages are impossible to ignore for anyone in the building. The software is provided by Netpresenter, the company that also provides the Dutch AMBER Alert system.

In emergencies, such as for example tornado warnings, UT Medical Center now can immediately issue alert messages on all video monitors and screensavers. The new solution is fully integrated into the medical center's existing disaster prevention and awareness strategy and is a major component of its in-house emergency communications.

"In emergencies, screensavers and video monitors are automatically taken over, alerting all our team members and giving them instructions on dealing with patients," comments Jeromy Welch, Internal Communications Coordinator at UTMC. "You really don't ever want to have emergency situations, but when you do have them, it is incredibly helpful and beneficial to be able to notify our team members in a very timely way in multiple locations and through multiple communication tools."

Jim Ragonese, Public Relations Manager and Assistant Director: "Getting these warnings across is of vital importance because a lot of our personnel don't have the opportunity to read the news or turn on the television, especially clinical individuals, who often don't even see windows. The screensaver and video monitor messages however are impossible to miss."

The medical center uses the same communication approach to improve internal communications and to increase employee motivation by highlighting specific departments that have met or exceeded customer service goals. Welch: "We actually have had no negative feedback whatsoever from our team members. They know they get better information quicker than before. Plus, we have been able to dramatically decrease the number of e-mails 'to all' sent, because important information that would otherwise be sent by e-mail is now transmitted via the screens."